ST. LOUIS, April 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAFC®, a member of the Sigma-Aldrich® Group (Nasdaq: SIAL), today announced a $6.25 million investment program to expand its Lenexa, KS, facility and create a global 'Center of Excellence' for the seamless upstream and downstream production of dry powder media and reagents. The investment, part of SAFC's worldwide facilities initiative, is designed to better serve the biopharmaceutical industry by creating 'Centers of Excellence' for manufacturing and supply chain optimization.

The project, supported by a $250,000 economic development grant from the Kansas Bioscience Authority, will include expanded pin milling and blending capabilities, enabling an increase of approximately 30% in batch production capacity. The expansion is expected to be completed by the end of 2010.

SAFC, the world's largest supplier of dry powder media, previously performed milling operations at three sites using differing milling techniques. Through its Center of Excellence program, the Company plans to consolidate all milling activity at Lenexa, KS, using proprietary pin milling technology. In comparison with other milling technology platforms, such as ball milling, pin milling allows greater process control, including temperature, feed rates and milling speed, to provide powder media with increased consistency and performance.

The expansion will feature completely separate areas for Animal Component Free (ACF) and Animal Component Containing (ACC) manufacture, both featuring pin milling technology. Upon completion, two dedicated manufacturing suites will have the capacity to produce seamless batches of ACF dry powder media in batch sizes ranging from 25 to 4000 kg, with customized packaging available for all quantities. A separate dedicated manufacturing suite for ACC dry powder media products will also come on line as part of the expansion.

"This grant will see the Lenexa, KS site become SAFC's first global 'Center of Excellence' for dry powder media manufacturing, and is a clear demonstration of our commitment to our biopharmaceutical partners, as we look to reduce their manufacturing costs by minimizing cell culture powder variability, while enhancing their supply chain integrity," said Bruce Lehr, SAFC's Director of Development. "We are extremely grateful to the Kansas Bioscience Authority for its generous grant, which demonstrates Kansas' strong commitment to bioscience research, development and commercialization."

Kansas Bioscience Authority CEO Tom Thornton said, "Our investments are making Kansas a national leader in bioscience, and this is possible thanks to the innovation, success and growth of world-class companies such as SAFC. We congratulate SAFC on its compelling vision for this center of excellence."

The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "is expected," "designed to better serve" or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived therefrom. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that the SAFC dry media manufacturing Center of Excellence will continue to meet the demands of the marketplace. Nor can there be any guarantee that any of its products will achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding these products could be affected by, among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About SAFC®: SAFC is the custom manufacturing and services group within Sigma-Aldrich that focuses on high-purity inorganics for high technology applications, cell culture products and services for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, biochemical production and the manufacturing of complex, multi-step organic synthesis of APIs and key intermediates. SAFC has manufacturing facilities around the world dedicated to providing manufacturing services for companies requiring a reliable partner to produce their custom manufactured materials. SAFC has four focus areas – SAFC Pharma®, SAFC Supply Solutions®, SAFC Biosciences®, and SAFC Hitech® – and had annual sales of over $600 million in 2009. SAFC is one of the world's 10 largest fine chemical businesses. For more information about SAFC, visit www.safcglobal.com.

About Sigma-Aldrich®: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company. Its biochemical and organic chemical products and kits are used in scientific research, including genomic and proteomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development and as key components in pharmaceutical, diagnostic and other high technology manufacturing. The Company has customers in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals, and in industry. Over one million scientists and technologists use its products. Sigma-Aldrich operates in 38 countries and has 7,700 employees providing excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to Accelerating Customer Success through Innovation and Leadership in Life Science, High Technology and Service. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its award-winning Web site at http://www.sigma-aldrich.com.

Sigma-Aldrich® and SAFC® are registered trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Biotechnology L.P. and Sigma-Aldrich Co.

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